Great Deal: Up To 50% Bonus On Purchased Alaska Miles

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This is a limited time promotion which is only available through September 29, 2016.

The bonuses are targeted, and specific to individual accounts. My account was targeted for a 40% bonus, for example, while my dad was targeted for a 50% bonus. All the accounts I’ve checked were eligible for at least a 35% bonus.

To see your bonus offer, follow this link, and then enter the details of your Mileage Plan account. Your “mystery bonus” should generate on the next page.

Is this a deal?

When Alaska sells miles they typically offer a 35-40% bonus, so even the 40% bonus is typically as good as it gets. But if you were targeted for a 50% bonus, that’s a heck of a deal.

In all instances the bonuses are tiered, where you get a larger bonus the more miles you buy. The tiers for the 50% bonus are as follows:

Buy 10,000-19,000 miles, get a 20% bonus

Buy 20,000-39,000 miles, get a 35% bonus

Buy 40,000-60,000 miles, get a 50% bonus

If you buy miles with a 50% bonus you’ll end up paying ~1.97 cents per mile, which is pretty darn good. If you maxed out the promo, you would receive 90,000 miles for $1,773.75.

If you were targeted for a 40% bonus the best you could do is ~2.11 cents per mile, while if you were targeted for a 35% bonus the best you could do is ~2.19 cents per mile.

All of those are attractive rates at which to rack up Alaska miles, given how valuable the miles are.

While the maximum number of miles you can purchase per transaction is 60,000 pre-bonus, you can buy as many sets of miles as you’d like. So you could buy a million miles if you wanted to, for example.

However, I’m confident they’ve learned their lesson (as a countless number of other programs have in the past after making a devaluation without notice), and I suspect we’ll get notice of devaluations in the future.

As I explained at the time, Emirates first class was only one of the excellent uses of Alaska Mileage Plan miles, and there are still plenty of other great ones out there. On a per mile basis, I still value Mileage Plan miles more than any other mileage currency. They have so many great partners, and some great routing, stopover, and change policies.

There’s no limit to how many miles you can buy per promotion, so this is great for people just getting started in the hobby (you can buy up to 60,000 miles pre-bonus per transaction, but can make as many transactions as you’d like)

Bottom line

Alaska miles are still extremely valuable. I’ve never seen a targeted bonus on Mileage Plan miles which is better than this (last year we saw a comparable offer, which was narrowly targeted), so if you’re in the market for Alaska miles and are targeted, this is a great opportunity.

I really can’t overstate how valuable the stopovers on one way award are, not to mention some of the unique airline partners which Alaska has.

So while I wouldn’t completely speculatively buy miles through this offer, with a redemption in mind, I think it’s an excellent deal.

If you were targeted for a 40-50% bonus, I’d seriously consider buying some Alaska miles.

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About luckyBen Schlappig (aka Lucky) is a travel consultant, blogger, and avid points collector.
He travels about 400,000 miles a year, primarily using miles and points to fund his first class experiences.
He chronicles his adventures, along with industry news, here at One Mile At A Time.

Following up this deal being particular interesting for Australians, does anyone know if they relaxed their Credit Card policy? I remember about a year ago they banned non-US credit cards from buying miles.

I just purchased miles (USA based, have purchased before, MVP Gold status) and the miles still have not posted (1 hour later). Email confirmation from points.com says miles could take 2-5 days to post. Have been instant in the past. What is going on? Going to go ballistic if my desired award is gone and I purchased for no reason.

@ Geo King — Hmm, they’ve always been instant for me too. I might call over to points.com and see if there are any processing issues with your credit card or anything like that slowing things down. Good luck!

As Lucky mentioned, the ability to make a free stopover in DBX, for example, is really valuable. I sometimes originate in Hawaii, so one can go on Alaska from OGG-SFO, then EY (on a 380) to DBX, then on to BKK or HKG. That’s a lot of traveling for a small amount of money.

I’m not sure if one can stop over on the US mainland, and then again in DBX.

@ Winston — They don’t, provided you have account activity every 18 months. I wouldn’t purchase miles if you’re not going to use them in the next 11 months, however. There will always be another sale, and it doesn’t make sense to give Alaska an interest-free loan.

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